


Second Best

by EpicFail1994



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Daft Sirius, Jail, Jealous Remus, M/M, POV Remus Lupin, sirius being sirius, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-17 22:38:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5887990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EpicFail1994/pseuds/EpicFail1994
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All I heard was "I swear it'll be funny" and then we were in jail. -- texts from last night, 705</p><p>More angsty than it sounds, sort of a happy ending.</p><p>Remus knew, deep down, that James would always come first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Best

Sometimes, on very rare occasions and under very extraneous circumstances, Remus hated James Potter. Well, okay, he didn't _hate_ James so much as felt very strongly in favour for the speccy gits prompt disembowelment.

As usual, it was Sirius's fault – but then Remus never could bring himself to be angry the stupid bugger for very long. He wasn't exactly sure why, considering everything Sirius had done over the years that well and truly deserved Remus's anger, but he had a sneaking suspicion it was something to do with the fact that their first attempt at a date had ended with Sirius spending two days in the hospital wing with parsnips growing out of... areas. It had then taken half a year and quite a bit of pestering (begging) for the man (boy, as he was then) to agree to a second date.

He was still never sure if Sirius had fully forgiven him for that.

There was also the fact that it was nearly impossible to continue to sulk at a guy who could do what Sirius Black could do to you in bed. Merlin's balls, Sirius's tongue was nearly a god in itself.

Still, it wasn't like James was an innocent bystander. In Remus's opinion a locked apartment, with phones off and Floo unlinked, clothes scattered across the floor on a vague path through the apartment, leading to a closed bedroom door, with _some_ amount of noise coming from inside, at eleven at night, told everyone pretty damn loud and clear NOT TO DISTURB. Not Prongs, though, apparently.

Remus had never been overly self-conscious; physically or any other way for that matter – not since David, his second boyfriend and first bedmate, had looked him up and down, squinted at his scars, and then nearly shagged him through the carpet. Asking Lily for potion for the friction burns (the possibility of going to Madam Pomfrey had been too mortifying to consider) without saying where they were or how he got them had been mortifying, and wasn't helped by the smugly knowing look on James's face. Sirius had been oblivious, of course.

(Remus's train of thought went off on a tangent here, and remarked to his brain how ironic it was that Sirius Black, Womansier of Hogwart's and Closet-Raider of Gryffindor, could be so _astonishingly_ thick when it came to the sex life of anyone but himself.)

Remus knew he wasn't without some appeal. He knew Sirius loved him. He knew that their relationship was perfectly stable and strong and built on a foundation of mutual trust all that other bullshit. However, even knowing said crap, having your lover literally _jump_ out of bed with you to go haring off into the night with another man, didn't exactly do anything for a bloke's ego.

Especially when it happened every other week.

Remus groaned, flopping back down onto the mattress as the slamming of the front door signalled Sirius's leave until Merlin knew what time, when he would inevitably either stagger home, exhausted, and collapse onto the their sofa; or stumble back, drunk, and collapse onto James's sofa. Either way, some amount of collapsing on sofas would be done.

To be fair, there was a third and a fourth option as well, though Remus had soon found himself preferring the former two. The third alternative was Sirius _and_ James crawling back at some ungodly hour of the morning and collapsing onto the sofa, while the fourth was Sirius coming home on his own, buzzing with adrenaline and hard as a rock from it, who would shove Remus against the nearest available surface, dry hump himself to completion while brokenly narrating bits of his adventures (and it was unmentionable just how disconcerting it was to hear Sirius muttering about Lily/James/Kingsley/Mad-Eye/Tom as he came against Remus's hip) and _then_ collapse. This was the worst, as it often left Remus hot and flustered and with nowhere to take it.

 _'Not that I'm much better off now'_ he mused, scowling up at the ceiling for a moment before sighing in resignation. Sliding a palm down his stomach to his cock (that Sirius had, up until thirty seconds ago, been so engrossed by), Remus pulled half-heartedly at his erection, staring dully up at the ceiling and musing that he was probably too old to be wanking off as much as he did.

After (eventually) bring himself to a flat and rather unsatisfying climax (bringing himself off was never the same after four years of Sirius Black) Remus hauled himself up out of bed and dragged his feet out into the kitchen. There was no point in trying to sleep, not when he'd be woken up sometime around four in the morning if he even managed to doze off anyway. He may as well get some work done.

As he had predicted, and as he was disagreeably used to, Remus was woken up at exactly seven minutes, twenty-six seconds past one (with a rather stiff back, having fallen sleep over the living room coffee table). However, unlike previous occasions, it was seven minutes past one... in the afternoon.

“He's done _what_?!” he yelled, jumping up from the couch with a wince only to be pushed back down again by a fretting Lily as Peter hovered awkwardly in the background, staring in barely-hidden disgust at the scattered collection of socks (Sirius's), underwear (Sirius's), magazines (Sirius's), crumbs (Sirius's), plates (Sirius's), spilled butterbeer (Sirius's) and rope ties (Remus's, but only for that one time!) throughout the apartment.

“Remus, calm down, it's fine!” Lily hushed, pushing him down again when he made to get back up.

“Fine! They're in a muggle jail cell, and you think that's _fine_?” he shouted, pushing back against Lily's hold for a moment before slumping back with a groan. _'Merlin, Sirius, what have you done now?'_

*

“All I heard was 'I swear it'll be funny' and then we were in jail” Sirius grinned, lounging back on the sagging living room couch as Remus shuffled about in the kitchen, making lunch (or dinner... or whatever).

“You know, I never thought anyone would take the saying literally, but _seriously_. If James jumped off of a cliff, would you?” scowled Remus, dumping the plate moodily onto Sirius's stomach and slouching down into his equally saggy armchair.

“Merlin, what crawled up your arse and died?” Sirius huffed, making a grab for his sandwich as it threatened to slide off his lap, smearing mayonnaise over his hand for his effort.

“Nothing” he grunted, staring moodily at the fuzzy muggle “television” in the corner of the room. Sirius frowned, but didn't comment, absent-mindedly sucking the sauce from his fingers. Remus sighed internally – and he really was getting worse for that. Old before his time, he was.

He knew he had good right to be pissed off with his boyfriend, but he also knew he should be used to it by now. It's not like he hadn't known what he was getting into.

It's just... it was the whole _best friend_ thing. Sirius and James were best mates, were near enough brothers... Ha, yeah right. Sirius no more saw James as a _brother_ as Remus saw the moon as a ball of cheese. He wasn't too petty to admit he was jealous. Oh, he was as jealous as a third year in the hospital wing on a Hogsmeade weekend. Nowadays it was more of a platonic soulmate kind of deal, he knew. But he also knew that that wasn't always the case, and that in the years between puberty and Lily, James and Sirius had been more intimate than _best mates_ strictly needed to be. Remus wasn't stupid – wasn't now, and wasn't then. 

He knew he wasn't Sirius's first, or only, choice of bed-partner in the months they got together; Sirius hadn't been his, either, not by a long shot. They'd been young, and reckless, and life at school had been the best it was ever going to get so why worry about things like that? But it was different now, surely. They were older. More... well, monogamous. That he _was_ certain of/ He knew Sirius was faithful. Knew when Sirius said “I love you” that he meant it. Knew that nothing, not rain or wind or laws or the even the fucking moon, would stop Sirius if he thought Remus needed him. Knew that in his unguarded, tipsy, sleepy, or veritisim-spiked moments Sirius looked at him like the moon shone out his arse and his face was the saving light of dawn.

But he also knew that James would always, _always_ come first.

“Remus?”

Remus blinked, looking up and finding a pair of lips against his. Sirius pulled back a fraction, eyes flickering over his face for a moment before huffing out a laugh.

“Daft bugger” he muttered affectionately, moving back in and pushing their mouths together.

Parting his lips, feeling Sirius move Remus’s own plate out of his lap and to the floor as he crawled there himself, and flicking his tongue against Sirius's, it was easy to forget about James. Remember about Sirius, and him, and them.


End file.
